Severe psychological stress lowers ability to bear physical pain

Washington: A new study has found that high amount of psychological stress has harmful effect on the body's ability to modulate physical pain .

The study conducted by American Friends of Tel Aviv University (TAU) examined a group of healthy young male adults and observed that although pain tolerance seemed unaffected by stress, but there was a significant increase in pain intensification and a decrease in pain inhibition capabilities.

Prof. Ruth Defrin of Physical Therapy at TAU's said that the type of stress and magnitude of its appraisal actually determines its interaction with the pain system, so if the perceived stress was high, the pain modulation capabilities would be more dysfunctional.

Prof. Defrin further added that previous studies have always suggested that chronic stress was far more damaging than acute stress, as it not only dysfunction pain modulation capabilities but also leads to chronic pain and systemic illness.

The researcher concluded and advised to do everything in a controlled power and adopt relaxation and stress reduction techniques as well as therapies to reduce the amount of stress in life.